Gone Away ~ The journal of Clive Allen in America

Those Whom The Gods Love
19/04/2007
A couple of weeks ago, my good friend Paul, sometimes known as Prying1, sent me the photograph below with the cryptic message, "Now how old do you feel?"

It made no sense until I noticed the names under the image: Eddie Haskell, the Beaver and Wally. Why were those names so familiar? And then it hit me - the old TV show, Leave it to Beaver. I was seeing the three young stars as they are now.

In answer to Paul's question, no, it does not make me feel particularly old, perhaps because I have always felt a good deal older than my years. But the photo had a fascination of another sort for me. It illustrates so clearly how the memory preserves the faces of our friends as they were when we last saw them. It takes no account of the passing years and the effect they have on our own appearance; the friends of our youth remain forever young.

Unless, of course, we meet them again. And that can be a shocking experience, to realize that all this time the memory has been lying to us, that age is kind to no-one and can be cruel beyond imagination. To grow old with friends is to accept their changing appearance as one accepts the signs of age in oneself; to have those years compressed into a moment as we meet someone not seen for decades can be a rude awakening indeed.

And let us be fair - the shock may be just as great for the old friend for he too will have remembered you as you once were. In my case the old friend might have the additional surprise of thinking they had met my father, for I look more like the old man with each passing year. There was a time when I resembled him not at all but now I find he stares back at me from the mirror.

Reunions are all very well and it may be good to think back on old times with someone not seen for years; but, in some ways, it is better that many remain in that timeless land of the memory, forever young and never changing in their beliefs and ambitions. They will never taste death or illness, never be infirm or lose their wits; we carry them hale and hearty in our memories, that land where the sun always shines and adventure is the order of each day.

Those whom the gods love do not die young - they live in us until the moment of our own death and, perhaps, even beyond.

Clive

Way
Ouch!
Boy, does truth ever hurt when mirrors from the past pass us by. Well said. Date Added: 19/04/2007

Gone Away
'Tis time and only time, Way - we are who we were and more, that's all. :) Date Added: 19/04/2007

Mad
"The past is a different country, they do things differently there" Date Added: 19/04/2007

keeef
For a show named 'leave it to beaver' there is a distinct lack of women in the picture.
Now i may be off track here ( and i think i probably am) but, in my experience, when the ex colonials from over the pond start talking beaver it is rarely to do with the water loving mamals who have a fondness for wood. Mind you now i've finished typing that last sentance i think i see where the phrase 'gettiong a woody' comes from.
In fact i've now distracted my own musings so much that i think i'd best stop typing before this thread degenerates any further.
Urrrr well written Gone....... Date Added: 20/04/2007

Gone Away
Thank you, Keef.
(pretends innocence on what Keef may be talking about apart from the compliment) Date Added: 20/04/2007

Janus
Jeepers Clive, don't let Keef give you the business.
I am beginning to realize my age when I go out to eat and everyone looks about 12 years old to me now. So now I am at my settling down days, stay tuned for midlife crisis. Date Added: 21/04/2007

Gone Away
Keef has always given me the business, Janus, ever since Mad brought him home from school when they were five years old. I don't think I can change the habit of a lifetime now. ;)
As for midlife crisis, make sure you get your money's worth - enjoy it to the full! Date Added: 21/04/2007

Way
I think I lost Keeef somewhere around the phrase, "water loving".
But I get an idea that he became lost at that same moment as me.
Now (and as a token meant to be nothing short of sincere proof, or that of an easy and cheap bribe), I offer, for the time being anyway, and by the following, an easily-pronounced word (one which seldom gets a chance to become so publicly exposed or be butchered so pugnaciously as fate might allow) on this loveliest of days.
"mamals".
Now, must I be forced to drag a complete sentance into this now-tasteless ordeal, or will the muses instead supply me a timely nap in some safe and noiseless spot? Date Added: 22/04/2007

Gone Away
Talking of mammals, you remind me (for no apparent reason) that the show in question contained a few enigmas that have never been explained. How, for instance, did a child named Theodore come to earn the nickname Beaver? Lest I overheat Keef's brain with the formulation of possible replies, allow me to hurry on.
It may be the fact that it rhymes with the family name, Cleaver, that suggested the change. But why, then, did it not happen to the older child, Wally? And, worst of all, what can have possessed such a mild-mannered and sensible couple as Mr and Mrs Cleaver to name their offspring Walter and Theodore in the first place? Had they no sense of the future and the impending doom awaiting such pretentious names? Given their quiet and responsible attitude, I would have thought that some less dangerous choice, John and David perhaps, or Michael and George, would appeal to them first.
Even the surname is suggestive of something sinister lurking behind the squeaky-clean family. Cleaver is redolent of large and heavy knives thumping down on the chopping block to separate meat from bone. Perhaps the whole show was an allegory of deeper and more serious events that we never realized at the time... Date Added: 22/04/2007

Way
My My. I did not realize that Clive so detests the Cleavers. Why, them saints! Now what shall we do? Date Added: 22/04/2007

Gone Away
No, no, don't mistake me - I do not detest the Cleavers! I merely suggest there may be more to their quiet lives than meets the eye. Date Added: 22/04/2007

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